Democrat David Gottfried wins Minnesota House special election, restoring a 67-67 power split

Voters in a Minnesota House district at the center of a post-election drama to control the chamber chose Democrat David Gottfried on Tuesday in a race that will leave control of the House tied and end a short-lived Republican majority. The Democratic victory will force the two parties to work together to agree on a budget for the next two years.

The special election in heavily Democratic House District 40B in the northern St. Paul suburbs of Roseville and Shoreview was scheduled after a state court ruled that Democratic state Rep.-elect Curtis Johnson failed to meet residency requirements. That disrupted an expected 67-67 tie in the House and led to the collapse of a power-sharing agreement between the two parties after Republicans decided to capitalize on their unexpected majority, prompting a three-week Democratic boycott of the chamber.

Gottfried defeated Republican Paul Wikstrom, who also ran for the seat in 2024 and had challenged Johnson’s residency status in court.

The parties reached a new power-sharing agreement in February that assumed Democrats would win the special election and restore the 67-67 tie. Under the terms of the deal, Republican Lisa Demuth will remain House speaker for the next two years. Once Gottfried’s victory is sworn in, the two parties will have even strength on most committees, except for an oversight committee that Republicans will control to investigate fraud in government programs.

Democrats hold a one-seat majority in the Minnesota Senate. Given the tie in the House, where 68 votes are needed to pass most bills, some degree of bipartisan cooperation will be required to pass the big budget measures and get them to Democratic Gov. Tim Walz for his signature. Updated budget projections released last Thursday suggested difficult negotiations ahead. The projected surplus for the next two-year budget slipped to $456 million, while the projected deficit for the two years after that grew to $6 billion.

Gottfried’s district is solidly Democratic. The ineligible Johnson received 65% of the vote in November, compared to about 35% for Wikstrom. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris carried the district with 68% of the vote, far better than the 51% she received statewide in her national loss to President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.

While Democrats had the “trifecta” of control over both chambers and the governor’s office in 2023 and 2024, GOP gains in the November elections returned the state to divided government, which has been the norm during most of the last three decades.